Just in time for Tax Day comes word that the nation's largest electric utility, Duke Energy, paid no federal income taxes on last year's profit of nearly $1.8 billion.
Duke instead got a $46 million rebate in 2012, says N.C. Policy Watch, a project of the anti-poverty group N.C. Justice Center. Last week's blog post cites previous work on corporate taxation and off-shoring of profits by Citizens for Tax Justice and the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy.
Duke says it and other large companies are simply following the tax guidance in the federal government's 2008 economic stimulus package. Duke also accelerated $9 billion in spending to replace old power plants and upgrade other infrastructure, creating "tens of thousands" of temporary and permanent jobs, it says.
Much of Duke's tax treatment relied on deferrals related to accelerated depreciation, Citizens for Tax Justice has reported. That's allowed Duke to take in $299 million in federal rebates despite profits of $9.1 billion between 2008 and 2012, for a negative tax rate of 3.3 percent, Policy Watch calculates.
"If Duke wants to get serious about living up to its claims about what it is and what it stands for and begin to repair its tarnished image, it would do well to begin by paying its federal income taxes," Policy Watch writes, referring to state investigations of Duke's merger with Progress Energy.
Duke will ultimately have to pay the deferred federal taxes, spokesman Tom Williams said. Duke also paid $402 million in property and other utility non-income taxes in North Carolina in 2012, the company said.
Monday, April 15, 2013
Duke Energy paid no federal income taxes in 2012
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27 comments:
You might be a liberal if you think this has nothing to do with former CEO Jim Rogers, a $10,000,000 unpaid loan and Duke being all on board with the global warming scam..
Mr. Henderson,
Where is the part of the blog post that says Duke did anything but follow the law? Where is the evidence that Duke isn't paying the tax that it is required to pay?
Sounds like the "problem" here is that a President who's been in office for four years is handing out perks to a company that gave his political machine $10 million.
@skippy
you might need to go.to college if you think a 10m writeoff would ever stop the IRS from applying the tax code to Duke regardless of whether it was for the DNC or not
@5:30 on what facts did you base your accusation that the president controls the application of IRS code in specific cases or that the president performed such a request, or that the IRS did not apply tax code in this case
Anonymous also says
If other corps can do it, we can to.
Gee, do you think we have a spending problem or a revenue problem.
One would think that they would have paid something! I have some land in the western part of the state, an area that propery taxes are being increase and the county is charging me taxes on 8/10ths of an acre that Duke has a right of way on and I cannot uses it dor anything. Perhaps Duke should pay the taxes on that section!
Global warming scam ? have you seen the satalite immages of the polar ice caps ? The rich get richer because those with the gold make the rules, exploit every loophole and insider information they help create
Why should anyone pay taxes they don't owe?
what does global warming have to do with taxes? I mean other than NOTHING. The IRS makes the rules. It isn't some conspiracy. Duke Energy isn't "rich people" They are a corporation. People that own stock in corporation may or not be rich, but they pay taxes on dividends and capital gains like every other person
Why does every one jump to the aid of a corporation that pays no income tax but crucifies the poor who pay no income tax and get the same tangential benefits from the government?
because perhaps they are people like me who don't work directly for the company but derive a substantial part of their child support payments, mortgage payments, property taxes, meal expenses, DMV fees, utility bill payments, etc. from this company. just because duke applied the tax code the same way you and i did, why throw them under the bus. if you want them to pay taxes, then protest the green energy credits they took to do this. you elected their tax exemption!
Why do you think NASCAR is going green? the gov is forcing this gobal warming joke on everyone without you idiots knowing it. I was beside a obama top man on a flight to London two months ago. This clown was so arrogant using his space and mine with a open Top secret global warming folder open. I plainly stated how to make the american people go green and stop eating meat and every other paragraph said how great obama was.
if "Duke says it and other large companies are simply following the tax guidance in the federal government's 2008 economic stimulus package" then Obama was quite in office yet. This is leftover from the Bush years.
A STOCKHOLODER, A FEW MONTHS AGO I SAID ALL STOCKHOLDERS NEEDS TO LINE UP AND FIRE JIM ROGERS NOW I THINK HE NEEDS TO BE PUT IN PRISON..HE IS A CROOK..THE DNC HAS BEEN PAID AND RIGHT NOW PROTECTING HIM.BUT WE STOCK HOLDERS ARE LEFT HOLDING A EMPTY BAD..SUE HIM FOR MISLEADING THE COMPANY..
You know who else didn't pay any taxes? All the dirty welfare animals sitting around in free Section 8 housing, with free utilities, free Cable TV, free phones, free food, free breakfast and lunch for their spawn at school, free healthcare, free everything! They not only didn't pay taxes they scammed the system and got refunds! Why don't you do a story on that Bruce?
How is it that they pay nothing and I just mailed a check to the IRS for $16,000? And who the ef are the politician-idiots who want to REDUCE the corporate tax rate?
Corporate welfare at its finest!
Duke is making record profits, pays no taxes, and keeps asking for the largest rate increases in history. This monopoly can't be stopped.
You can thank the GOP and our Republican NC members. This is why we have the sequester. No Republican is serious about lower taxes, smaller government, or conservative values. They only want YOU and me to pay more taxes and then give the trade-off to Corporations. Where are the JOBS NC GOP.
You all are willing to take from the POOR and give to the Rich. For what? Corporate Welfare is 100x worst than SNAP or Section-8.
You can thank the GOP and our Republican NC members. This is why we have the sequester. No Republican is serious about lower taxes, smaller government, or conservative values. They only want YOU and me to pay more taxes and then give the trade-off to Corporations. Where are the JOBS NC GOP.
You all are willing to take from the POOR and give to the Rich. For what? Corporate Welfare is 100x worst than SNAP or Section-8.
Never thought of it that way, Food Stamps and Section 8 provide more jobs than Corporations. Thanks for the heads up.
Duke lowered its taxes the same way I lower my taxes on my investment property "losses" due to expenses, depreciation, etc., etc. as allowed in the tax code.
Even though I ultimately make a profit off my investments in terms of cash.
(That's one way people get rich off real estate, for example)
Smart folks have been doing this ever since there have been tax credits and deductions.
Duke just has more smarts than many others if they've figured out how to pay zero taxes.
Utilities are very capital intensive businesses and usually have a lot of equipment they can depreciate.
You know, things like nuclear power plants.
Accelerated depreciation helps a lot of people
I bought a washer and dryer for my rental unit and depreciated it in one year.
Formerly, items like that were depreciated over several years.
So it is a way to encourage people to BUY NOW and is a bit of a stimulus to our otherwise sucking economy.
The accelerated depreciation lowered my taxes and made it much more likely that I would purchase those items NOW rather than later.
That high corporate income tax level is a real killer isn't it. Good thing we have the highest rate in the world (according to Republicans).
Croney Capitalism.
Meanwhile Duke wants to raise our rates again!
No one has mentioned the approx 38000 jobs they provide that put food on people's tables and all the donations they made that help even more. Their tax return is surely looked at closer than ours so they must be following the law. Get over it people.
"Get over it"? A billion dollar corporation isn't contributing to federal income taxes while our country borrows 40 cents on every dollar it spends and we're not supposed to be pissed? For as hollow as a lot of the "pay their fair share" talk that comes out of the Obama Left, in this particular case its pretty clear. Oh, and don't give us this crap about how Duke and others are somehow doing us all this huge FAVOR by being a large employer, etc... This is a give a take world, buddy. We are the consumers, and Duke would have nothing without a captive consumer market, being that they are a monopoly.
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